


Divisible (Part I of the Sovereign States of America saga)

by BlessedBetheFruit93



Category: Original Work
Genre: 2016, Alternate Timeline, Divisible, Dystopian, Racism, Sovereign States of America, Speculative fiction, Tyrannical Government, ethnostate, misogny, white nationalism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 20:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30044037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlessedBetheFruit93/pseuds/BlessedBetheFruit93
Summary: What if someone worse than Donald Trump had won the 2016 US election? What if that person had been intelligent and cunning in their ascension to power?It's 2027 and the Sovereign States of America is still in the throes of a white nationalist dictatorship. Minorites are severely oppressed and enslaved, women are treated like human chattel, and the power elite are determined to return America to a "former glory." Follow the accounts of four people struggling in the turmoil of the ruthless SSA as they try to stay alive...or ignite the flames of rebellion.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I would like this to be a dream. Dreams were temporary and only occupied your mind, not the world around you."

Chapter 1

_Ben Clarke_

The barracks had once been a historically black college. The massive brick buildings had survived the onslaught of violence, though not without sustaining bullet-holes and battered wooden doors. There were barren plinths where statues once stood, likenesses of activists now reduced to rubble.

The stony paths of the courtyards still had old bloodstains, now dried reddish-brown like clay. These splotches of remaining viscera were like ghosts…young souls wasted away into irrelevance. There was uneasy silence here, a liminal space where once there had been sound. Sounds of footsteps, snippets of conversation, music playing, and laughter…the absence of such sounds were haunting, to say the least.

I would like this to be a dream. Dreams were temporary and only occupied your mind, not the world around you. I’d even take a nightmare. Nightmares were also temporary, mere ruminations of phobias and the psyche. Hell, a comatose delusion would be preferable.

I am not dreaming.

I feel my legs holding my bodyweight, my feet on the ground. My hands hold an M4 carbine and my face feels the chill of the morning air.

There was a time in my life when I felt good about myself. I worked out, I finished my degree, I had a well-paying job. I had all these good things – how could my life ever go wrong?

Turns out life isn’t a checklist of obligations.

Patrolling through the desecrated dormitories, it was like walking into a gutted museum. There were empty squares where paintings and posters once hung, circular indentations in the carpet where statues stood. The rooms were still being emptied of personal effects from students, now dead, in captivity, or otherwise. Other Adjudicators were making their rounds, all blank-faced and taciturn. We did not make eye-contact. We were not friends or even colleagues. We were bodies, boots on the ground, and sentries for those more powerful than us.

There were no longer doors to any of the rooms. Plots brewed behind closed doors, so they had taken care to remove any barriers, including mental ones. Not even the bathrooms had stalls, not anymore. Your life was no longer yours, so why would you deserve privacy? Only the Chancellors had doors to their offices. They had status, prestige, and secrets. Who knows what illicit vices they entertained? Banned literature, films, TV shows. Perhaps they snuck in a Concubine or two and were reenacting scenes from illegal pornography. After all, what use was power if you couldn’t abuse it?

I had yet to be assigned to a sector. Adjudicators served on three fronts: personal, federal, and border security. I’d take anything but border security. I heard that most of the work camps were located at the SSA-Mexico border. The Adjudicators there had to do the most inhumane things of all our rank. They’d given up building a physical wall and built one out of men instead. Anyone who attempted to cross, to or from, was shot on sight.

How did it end up this way? That’s a story too exhausting to tell in one sitting. Besides, I don’t have any way to clarify my sources. I learned through eavesdropping and gossiping mouths at the black market. I bought cigarettes, cheap gin, and sometimes affection. The prostitutes had rumors to share along with their bodies and I was as hungry for news as I was for companionship.

I can only accurately tell my story. It will be in fragments and in different tenses, for I live my life in memories as much as I do in the present. They can’t take away my memories. Not yet, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You got used to seeing the whole picture, not bothering to notice every individual brushstroke. Too much slips by your notice if you’re not looking for them."

Chapter 2

I finished my shift by 5:30 and joined the line for dinner rations. Some of the younger recruits attempted conversation, not knowing the customs here. Senior officers were silent and unsmiling. Was it agitation or conditioning? Or had the brainwashing left them hollow, as if their personalities had been scooped out of them like pumpkin pulp?

The queue of men before me was a strange spectacle. We were like clones, all wearing uniforms, all white, and all emotionless. The only break in the monotony were inspections, when the higher ranked Adjudicators would berate us for the slightest infraction. You saw a glimpse into soldiers’ psyches, sometimes hints of rage, other times fear. They had to break us in order to rebuild us stronger, like improperly healed fractures.

Today’s meal was beef stew with whole wheat toast. They also provided us with vitamin supplements and a protein shake. We had to eat everything—there was no skipping meals here. If a soldier refused to eat, he was thrown into solitary for a week so he could experience _real_ starvation firsthand. Acting ungrateful or insolent was a suicide mission.

I received my meal from the maid, the only woman permitted on these grounds. The maids were never young and beautiful though. This one was heavyset with pouched cheeks and thinning gray hair tucked under a hairnet. I wondered who she had been before. Maybe a grandmother or a retiree enjoying her golden years playing cards with friends. She’d already lived through rampant inequality, so I bet this was a slap to the face.

I sat down and began eating. The soup was hot, but not enough to scald. I broke the toast in halves and dunked them in the broth. I once tried to exhibit table manners, but at the end of your shifts, you were too damn hungry for decorum. Ravenously, I drank the liquid from the stew, leaving the beef chunks and chopped vegetables for last. After I devoured every morsel, I took the vitamins and drained the bottle of protein shake, following it with a few gulps from my canteen. 

As I took my emptied my tray and set it on the stacks of trays to be washed, I watched as two Sergeant Adjudicators entered the cafeteria. Their uniforms were similar to ours, only they wore armbands with the regime insignia: a golden cross with red triangle behind it, with a Latin slogan “Honorem Fidei Puritas”. We had just had an inspection three days ago, so that couldn’t be the reason they’re here.

They stopped behind a group of Adjudicators eating their meals, abruptly hoisting the middle one by his armpits. He spat out stew in alarm, spraying the table with half-masticated beef and broth. Not bothering to turn him around, they dragged him along the floor as he screamed in terror. They disappeared into the hall, the screams echoing off the walls until they were too far away to hear. 

What had he done then? If he’d been on personal detail, it was probably because he fraternized with a Concubine or slave. Or maybe it was bigger than that and he was aiding the rebellion. There were still pockets of civil war in the Northern states. Maybe he’d been helping the Saint Collete Refugee Organization in Texas who help women and minorities escape to non-extraditable countries. They had contacts all over the occupied and unoccupied states to coordinate safe houses and smuggling routes. Such routes had been opened long before the infiltration, used by migrants and cartel.

Maybe it wasn’t that grandiose. He could’ve been caught with black market merchandise like vodka or THC edibles. I knew an Adjudicator who got flogged for having a banned copy of _The Adventures of_ _Huckleberry Finn_. They didn’t like any novels which asserted that black people deserved equality.

After dinner, I went to the shower room. I stowed my M4 in my locker, which wasn’t really a locker because there was no lock. I undressed, shoving the dirty clothes in the laundry chute. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I caught a look at myself in the mirror. I was paler than ever and needed a shave. My hair was raggedy and unkempt, not having seen a barber in over a year. The shadows under my eyes made my face look gaunt, like I hadn’t eaten in weeks.

And to think, they considered me as superior. All my white pastiness and sickly, haunted demeanor…truly the makings of a master race.

I abandoned the towel as I stepped onto the wet tiled shower floor. I turned on the nearest nozzle, shrinking back as icy cold water deluged me. I adjusted the settings until the water was appropriately warm. I let the water run over my head, droplets dangling from hair tendrils.

_“You gonna stay in there all day?” my girlfriend, Rochelle, hollered through the door of our bathroom._

_“Could do. You could join me in here.” I answered back, chuckling._

_“Nuh-uh, I got too much shit to do in the shower without you distracting me.” she answered._

_“It’s you who distracts me, even when you’re not in here.” I said in a leering voice._

_“You’re supposed to be getting clean, not more dirty, boy.” she replied, but I knew she was affected._

We had planned to go to a movie that day. Instead, we settled for Netflix, pizza, and making love. For an abomination, it sure felt right.

I washed the day off my skin with the crumbling bar of cheap soap. I used only a little shampoo—we’d been advised not to use so much since factories and workers were still being vetted. Can’t have terrorists filling the shampoo bottles with fentanyl or anthrax.

I rinsed off and stepped out of the showers, rewrapping the towel around me. By now, more Adjudicators were entering the locker rooms, preparing for their nightly bath. I deposited the towel in the laundry chute and grabbed a freshly laundered uniform from the adjacent shelves. We weren’t given clothes to sleep in. We had to be in uniform at all times and ready to engage in combat at a moment’s notice.

I spread talcum powder over my chest and shoulders. Spending 24 hours each day in Kevlar caused godawful chafing, even through the tank top and white undershirt. I guess it was better than a bullet in the ribs. I slipped on said shirts and Kevlar vest, the Velcro ripping loudly as I adjusted the fit. I pulled on the army-issued t-shirt with the letters ADJ stitched on the breast pocket. Tugging on the camo cargo pants, I tucked the edges of the t-shirt into the waistband.

You’ll have to forgive my overly specific descriptions. I feel like if I don’t include every single detail, I’ll forget something vital. I didn’t use to dwell on minutia. You got used to seeing the whole picture, not bothering to notice every individual brushstroke. Too much slips by your notice if you’re not looking for them. I remember reading the news every day, not bothering with the stories beyond the first page. But not everything that happens is obvious or sensational. After all, weren’t there pockets of war occurring in other countries, which weren’t mentioned in the headlines? Suicide bombings, IED explosions, and mass murder happened all the same without the cameras rolling or pens writing each bloody detail onto paper.

I’m ashamed to admit that I hardly remember my life before. Not necessarily what happened, but how I felt. I didn’t realize how lucky I was at the time. Sure, the political situation was horrible, but we all thought it wouldn’t be that bad. We still had a democracy, a system of checks and balances. There were still Senators and Congressmen with consciences. The president wasn’t allowed to burn down 300 years of legislation to establish a conservative enclave.

God, how foolish I was. How foolish we all were. Never believe for a minute that your country is invulnerable to tyranny.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I am now a traitor to what I once believed in. That person was another entity entirely, cut off like an amputated limb."

Chapter 3

I lay back on my bunk as I listened to the blustery winds blow outside. The smell of imminent rain reminded me of spending time at my grandparents’ farm. I was scared of thunderstorms as a child, so every time there was a storm incoming, they’d make me hot chocolate and tell me stories to distract me. Grandma Lois had lived in Oklahoma as a child and had many stories about tornadoes she’d experienced. 

“I was thirteen years old and my daddy was having the annual pumpkin harvest. You know, kids and parents would come ‘round to pick up pumpkins for Halloween. I was helpin’ mama with the corn maze when the sirens started. We was all confused because the sky was clear and blue as ever! Then daddy called around the town to get some information. We didn’t have the weather reportin’ they have now, so we had to get information through the grapevine.

Tommy Burns had seen the monster twister bearing down on Moore, sayin’ that it sounded like a freight train from hell—pardon my French. Mama, Daddy, George, Marlene, Ruthie, me, and a few people from the harvest festival all crammed into the root cellar. Daddy got out the Bible he had stored in the cellar, just for occasions like this. We all prayed that God would protect us and the farm. Right then, a roarin’ like none other started above. We could hear the rain and hail, soundin’ like golf balls smackin’ the ground. The girls all screamed when the thunder clapped—dear Lord, it was the loudest thunder I’d ever heard. Nearly popped my eardrums.

The twister was right above us, wreakin’ havoc. Daddy kept whispering prayers while we all shook in fear. It felt like we were there for hours, but it was only about 40 minutes. I’d been looking at the clock. Daddy said we should wait at least an hour before headin’ back up. We all did, then he made his way back up to check the skies. And wouldn’t you believe it, the house and farm was still standing. Even the animals was all accounted for.”

The lightning had flashed, startling me so much, I nearly spilled some cocoa.

“People say God controls the rains and seasons…but I think such things are the devil’s domain.” Grandpa had said. “God’s constantly fightin’ the devil in the skies, that’s why we hear thunder.”

Sure, it was the platitudes and myths adults told children to placate them, but I found comfort in them, if only for a moment. I grew older and my brain became less porous, less malleable to baseless fairytales. There was a time where I believed in God, in miracles, in Heaven. But the idea of God had been capitalized, used for monetary or political gain. The atrocities committed in the name of God were publicized as divine reckoning, the hypocrisy only evident if you were one of the few that read the Word of God yourself and not a heavily edited version out of the mouths of preachers.

I can’t give you date of events…the times before all blurred into a miasma of chaos, confusion, and desperation. Some months passed in the blink of an eye, some days felt like weeks. Where should I even start? When _did_ this all start?

Republican primaries on national news. Rochelle and I having pizza, slumped on the couch, me with a beer, her with a wine cooler. We watched with the intention of laughing at the candidates. We were fairly liberal, though we were both classified as Independent voters. I voted for Obama the first time I was able to vote in 2012. 2016 was so far gearing up to be a shitshow. The one Democrat Senator Rochelle and I supported had lost in their primaries, choosing Laura Collins instead. She seemed personable enough, but she had been the thorn in the foot of the Republican side of Congress since she was elected.

This crop of Republican candidates was an odd mix. One was a businessman who had been borne into affluence, coming from a long line of wealthy entrepreneurs. Earl K. Underhill had the kind of demeanor expected by someone who never struggled in their life. The answers he gave to political questions were empty promises and dry anecdotes about the hard-working Americans he’d talked to long enough to use them for political fodder.

The one woman candidate bragged immediately in her allotted five minutes about how she had been a proud Reaganite and how her family strived to protect traditional values.

“Yeah, nothing more traditional than systematic racism.” Rochelle scoffed. “I don’t care how many African babies you adopt, it’s not gonna change the fact that Reagan was pro-apartheid.”

Rochelle had been a political science major at Virginia State University, taking classes online. She wanted to become an intelligence analyst and help the war on terror. She’d become particularly interested in domestic terrorist groups, specifically white nationalists and neo-Nazi organizations.

The last candidate was arguably the most charismatic of the bunch. His name was Warren G. Crestwell, a Representative of North Carolina. Normally, I didn’t care for any outspoken, ostentatious politician, especially Republicans. But Warren Crestwell had an enigmatic demeanor, well-spoken but not brash like his competition. He spoke to the audience rather than at them, his voice soft and pleading.

“The unrest in our country is not an accident nor a byproduct of criminal justice. American lives are in danger and there needs to be an asserted effort of reform and restructuring in order to heal the broken limbs of our communities. Such is not done by grandstanding and offering fragile twigs of an olive branch…we need order and we need action.”

It sounded good at the time, if you weren’t privy to the carefully crafted semaphores hidden behind innocuous words. The term “American lives” is contextual to who is spreading the message. To us, “American lives” means everyone who lives in America. To them, “American lives” means the lives of the subset of people _they_ consider to be Americans—Caucasian, non-Hispanic, non-Sicilian, non-Jewish persons. The talk of “order” and “action” did not mean political movements and protests for change. It was an omen hidden in plain sight, like rotting stems beneath the dirt of otherwise pristine roses.

That election year had been inundated with police brutality cases against black citizens and resulting protests. Crestwell winning the primaries ignited protests from both sides, but mostly lit the flames of mob torches. Suddenly, the vitriolic hate messages only found in restricted layers of the Internet became mainstream. Counter protests cropped up where black activists held their demonstrations, all bigots from every corner of online hate groups. It wasn’t just African Americans in their iron-sights; they hated any demographic that didn’t subscribe to the status-quo.

Warren Crestwell publicly decried the protests, though he did it out of political obligation rather than actual dismay.

“I must ask the citizens of this sovereign land to stop the violent riots. Our First Amendment right gives us the right to protest, but not in ways that would hurt other people. Let democracy headline your protests in a way that is not limiting other people’s freedom of speech.”

The counter-protests died down considerably, but there were still online wars being waged over censorship. Rochelle and I had taken ourselves off social media all together. We’d been getting harassment for being an interracial couple. My parents supported Crestwell’s ideals, having never liked my involvement with Rochelle in the first place. My mother told me she could never love a mixed-race baby, which fueled my decision to cut her out of my life for good. Rochelle’s parents had been fighting racial relations since the 70s and expressed exhaustion with the continual pattern of inequality among the working class.

I am now a traitor to what I once believed in. That person was another entity entirely, cut off like an amputated limb. My thoughts and memories had been vaulted away, locked off by choice or by necessity. I cannot think of those things, because then I will realize what a selfish person I am. I cannot melt into myself and grow a shell of passive indifference.

If you must, call me a coward. I deserve it. Because I am surely not a hero.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Thinking of the moment and being in the moment are two separate dimensions. And I have stepped from the former into the latter."

Chapter 4

_Lucille Phillips_

I had arrived early at Cahill Plantation Manor. The house had the telltale ostentatious columns and balconies out front with massive windows along the front with ornate framed oak door. There were gardens of flowers tucked behind uniform hedge rows which lined the reddish-brown steps. Grudgingly, I saw the appeal, though I was no less revolted by the idea of staying here.

An Adjudicator accompanied me in the back of the security van. He sat abnormally still like a mannequin in a department store window. His eyes stared at some point past me, his dark eyes conveying no emotion. I was quite new to this way of life, having only met a few of Adjudicators at the detention center. They were all similarly solid, like they’ve been carved from ice. Had they been that addled? Or worse, were they true collaborators?

The Adjudicator had led me up the stairs, but not through the front door. He led me down to a basement area. I immediately smelled a horrid odor, like the scent of burning meat. He rapped on the door three times.

“Enter.” said a voice from within the room.

The Adjudicator opened the door and led me across the threshold, shutting the door behind us.

A man was holding something over a fire pit, like ones used at luaus to roast pigs on a spit. A soft whimpering noise echoed over the crackling flames and I swallowed my gasp. Two other women were here and they were visibly crying as a servant nursed their newly branded shoulders.

This man was tall, but not gangly. I couldn’t quite see his face in the firelight but could tell he was wearing eyeglasses. He wore dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, the hem tucked into his slacks.

I swayed on the spot, the Adjudicator’s grip tightening on my arm. If the detention center had been the toe into the pool of this new life, then this was the definitive shove into the deep end.

“Gag her.” the man asked.

I recoiled from the Adjudicator, but he tugged me back effortlessly, pulling up my arms to zip tie my wrists over my head. He pressed a cloth against my mouth.

“Bite or it’s gonna be worse for you.” he hissed. His voice was metallic, like I was hearing him from the opposite end of an echoing tunnel.

I opened my mouth and he crammed the cloth in my mouth. I gagged as the cloth touched the back of my tongue.

“Bring her over.” the other man commanded.

The Adjudicator dragged me along as my legs were trembling too much to move of their own accord. He ungracefully set me down on the dusty hardwood floor beside the fire pit. I felt the sweltering heat of the flames, the smell of burned flesh trapped in my nose.

“The other Chancellors do tattoos. I, however, like something a bit more permanent.” said the man near the fire pit.

Chancellors. He was a Chancellor. What exactly did that mean? Chancellor of what? I hated not knowing things.

I resisted the urge to turn around to see him more clearly. Instead, I stared at the other women, the ones already branded. I couldn’t quite make out what the brand was, what it said exactly. They were wearing the same shapeless brown gunny sack shift, only theirs had been torn at the neck for better access to the shoulders. One of them looked barely older than fifteen. She had vibrant red hair that stuck to her scalp with sweat. Her pale face was peppered with freckles and acne scars.

The other woman was older with dirty blonde hair and blotchy scars on her neck and arms, possibly from laser removal of tattoos. She was facing away from me, so I couldn’t see her face, though I could hear and see her chest convulsing with sobs. The third woman was wearing a gray prairie dress with a stitched arm band reading the letters “DS.” Her hair was wrapped in a cloth and tied at the back. She was nursing the branding scars, her brown, callused hands cleaning and salving the damaged skin.

“Ready her for branding, please.” the man commanded.

The Adjudicator came over and crouched just next to me. I shook with fear as his skin briefly touched mine. With a jerk of his arms, he ripped the neckhole of the shift. The bare skin of my back now felt the extreme heat rolling off the fire, yet pimpled with goosebumps out of terror.

“Hold her still.”

The Adjudicator followed orders, his arms encasing my lower shoulders, keeping me absolutely rigid. I stared at the floor, not wanting to look at him. I didn’t want to see his indifference to my incoming pain—or worse, his anticipation.

There’s a moment, always a moment, before you know you’re going to experience something unbearable. You’re never ready, no matter how much you prepare. When you can neither commit to fight or flight, you find a third option.

Surrender.

“3…2…1…”

I screamed through the cloth as the white hot iron touched my skin, the sizzling impact sounding like hissing snakes. The pain was indescribable, the angry all-encompassing fire burning me inside out. Sweat and tears poured from my face as the iron was lifted away. The burning continued and I retched from the odor of my own seared skin and the smoke from the fire.

Burning at the stake, burning from anger, burning bridges, burning bras…it never ended.

“Remember this pain.” the man with the branding iron said above my whimpering. “Remember this pain if you ever feel like disobeying. Because I can multiply it by thousands, if necessary.”

His words were acidic and sounded like boiling water.

The Adjudicator pulled me up and motioned me over to a cot in the corner of the room. He untied my arms and ungagged me. The fire was extinguished before the two men exited the room.

I laid on my side, careful not to lie in such a way my shift rubbed against the healing brand. My eyes stared at nothing, vision unfocused as I suffered silently. I’d read about dissociating before in psychology classes, but never really understood it. I’d never experienced trauma so great that I’ve needed to dissociate…until now.

You never know how you would really act in times of peril. You can tell yourself you’d be heroic, fight back, beat the odds, escape…but these are the musings borne of theoretical trauma. Thinking of the moment and being in the moment are two separate dimensions. And I have stepped from the former into the latter.

Nate and I relaxing in bed after long days at work. Sometimes, we just laid there and held each other. We both worked in IT departments, but at separate locations. I programmed and did quality-testing for an educational software brand. Nate analyzed systems and infrastructures for schools and corporations. We both made decent wages, though we still lived in the dinky townhouse we’d lived since we were both in graduate school.

Nate took up video games as a hobby, streaming games online with his own meager audience. While I also played video games from time to time, I liked to wind down with knitting or crochet projects, reading books, or writing for fun.

You could say we had the dream life. We thought of it that way, too.

We’d stayed away from politics for the most part. I remember when the goings-on of Congress and the President were boring. There was the occasional scandal on Wall Street or corrupt corporation story. But things went on as normal. We thrived on normal. At least…I thought we did.

In late 2015, something was brewing underneath our complacency. The election year was upon us and this President had nearly completed his allotted two terms. Political patterns tended to volley era to era and other patterns repeated. But this was something else entirely. This wasn’t mere conservatism waiting for its time to strike.

Normally, extremism and conspiracies were treated as ridiculous sideshows for the real news. Those type of pundits weren’t even heard unless you went searching for what they had to say. However, in 2016, such ideologies were too big for the mainstream news to ignore. From notorious extremist right-wing pundits being booed off left-leaning college campuses to specific news broadcasts politically aligning themselves with questionable, unfounded beliefs, suddenly the airwaves were filled with talk of a revolution.

This was no longer conservatism against progressivism. 2016’s political climate was, in no doubt, democracy versus fascism. It was never called fascism – they called it something innocuous like “true freedom”, “real liberty”, or “patriotism.” But this wasn’t about who stood up to say the pledge, had the right to own guns, or kept traditional values. Wasn’t it? Was it?

I wish I could say I tried to stop it. But that’s not true. We depended on others to fight our battles. After all, we didn’t join the protests. But would it have mattered if we had marched, holding signs that said “DEMOCRACY NOW, FASCISM NEVER”? They bombed Detroit after riots broke out, only months after the infiltration and the nationwide media blackout. That was when there were a few underground news stations before the purges.

I wish I could tell you how, when, why, how, and where it all began. But I don’t know. There are no definitive answers now. These were not the times when we could use search engines to find recent news updates. I can only tell you things I’ve heard or saw with my own eyes. Maybe one day when this is all over -- and it will be over – I’ll find out. Fascism eventually eats itself and dissolves.

I bristled as a hand closed over my arm. The makeshift nurse with the “DS” on her shoulder.

“I need to clean your brand.” she said.

Her dark brown eyes were hollowed with shadows. What had been done to her? I knew nothing of this new life. Remembering the virulent racism centering so many extremist pundits’ beliefs, I can only assume she’s been enslaved. But she’s not the one wearing a new brand, at least not one I can visibly see.

I sat up, my mind feeling heavy like my skull was full of liquid lead. And yet the rest of me felt empty. I had been emptied, like a bucket of human waste. Strangely enough, I remembered removing the innards of Thanksgiving turkeys so you could stuff them back up with bread crumbs. Nate, being Canadian, was always exasperated with American traditions, pointing out the futility of shoving stuffing up a dead bird’s ass.

I put Nate out of my mind. Thinking of him made the emptiness worse.

I grunted as the nurse pressed a cold wet cloth to the branding scar.

“Sorry.” she said in a low voice.

The other two women had vacated the room. Did they get their own amenities, then?

I didn’t know much about this new society, but the little information gleamed at the detention center was that certain women were going to be Concubines. It could be a catastrophized theory invented by a scared woman, but it was now plausible.

The woman now applying ointment to the burned flesh stayed resolutely silent. This was probably protocol. Or maybe she resented having to be our nursemaid.

After putting a bandage on the branding scar, she stood up, cleaning her hands with a rag. She fumbled in one of the cabinets, pulling out a neatly prepared bundle of clothing topped with covered sandals. She placed them beside me.

“There’s booties in here that you’ll need to put before entering the house.” she explained. “I’ll turn my back while you dress.”

“Thank you…” I said, my voice weak.

She didn’t respond with “you’re welcome”, she just nodded and turned around.

I inspected the clothes. The dress was off-white, long-sleeved, and ankle-length. Timidly, I pulled off the ruined brown shift. I stared down at my breasts, encased in a purple zebra-spotted bra. Fresh tears spilled from my cheeks. I hadn’t had time to do laundry before Noel and I tried to escape.

The underclothing in the pile were not flattering at all. The cupless brassiere were the type elderly women wore with matching granny panties. Nevertheless, I replaced the zebra-printed bra and bikini-cut underwear for the shapeless ones. The dress was loose enough to pull over my head. It was too big for me, but I think that was on purpose. I pulled off the worn pair of flip-flops they had given us at the detention center and put on the new ones. I finished the look by pulling the blue plastic booties over the sandals.

There. I was now shapeless, inside and out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It didn’t matter who gave answers and who asked questions. This was the consequence of things I once thought were freedoms."

Chapter 5

The nursemaid led the way out of the basement. She didn’t lead me back to the front of the wraparound porch, instead she went around the back. My eyes strained against the bright sunlight, beaming directly overhead. It had to be around noon, then. I had to pick up the skirt of my dress as I walked, or I would trip over the hem. This made me think of those cartoons that showed women hitchhiking by drawing up their skirts and exposing a leg. I never realized how adult the context was until I was older. “Give me a ride and I’ll give you a ride” was the promise.

We walked past the backyard, where a fenced-off pool was being maintained by another person with the “DS” armband. More of them were tending the vegetable gardens and pulling fruit off the trees. They were all dark-skinned, some Hispanic and Middle-Eastern, but most of them were Black.

My stomach lurched, the way it does when you’re about to be punished. I felt like a delinquent child on their way to juvie. What were my crimes, then? Being an unmarried woman? Or just being a woman? Maybe it was deeper than that. I hadn’t been proud enough of being white. Maybe they thought I’d betrayed them. I didn’t even know exactly who “they” were and why they thought they had any right to decide where my loyalties should lie.

I guess they do now.

The nursemaid led me into a back entrance, through French glass doors. The smells of cooking assaulted me, making my mouth water. I hadn’t eaten since the detention center and they had only given us protein bars and water. We were in a hallway. The floors were immaculate and highly polished marble. There were paintings hung on the wall that seemed eerily familiar. Watercolor landscapes of pastures, mountain lakes, lily pads on pond surfaces…

The nursemaid led me up a spiral staircase, which had been painted white like the floors. We climbed the narrow steps, my knees shaking with the effort. The stress of the last few days had spiked my adrenaline sky-high, masking the hunger. But now it was in full force, my stomach roaring for food. 

The second floor was significantly less polished. The doors to the rooms weren’t the same as downstairs which were solidly white with brass doorknobs. These rooms had been fitted with classroom doors, with the little windows. The doorknobs had their keyholes facing the outside.

“You’ll stay in one of these rooms until the Sealing ceremony. Your dress is already hanging on your wardrobe. One of the maids will bring you lunch in a moment.” the nursemaid told me.

She took a ring of keys out of her dress pocket. There were a lot of keys. Fifteen, if I had to guess. How many things or people were locked up in this house? She chose the correct key, jammed it into the lock, and opened the door. I stared at my new living quarters in bewilderment.

It was like a hospital room for the terminally ill. Sterile white walls and linoleum, a small bed with over-starched gray blankets. No paintings hung in here, not even a clock was present. There was even a small closet for a sink and toilet.

“These won’t be permanent, it’s just until the ceremony is finished. You’ll be given your own sleeping quarters with far better amenities.” the nursemaid explained.

I stared at her forlornly, wanting her so badly to tell me this was an elaborate prank.

“Why? Why is this happening? What is happening?” I asked her, not sure what question I should ask.

She stared at the floor, her face unreadable.

“Don’t ask questions.” she hissed in a barely perceivable whisper. “The answers aren’t worth the consequences.”

She left the room swiftly, locking the door from the outside. I sat on the bed, grimacing as the mattress springs protested.

The answers aren’t worth the consequences.

But I had suffered the consequences and not been given one answer. It was useless to debate this. It didn’t matter who gave answers and who asked questions. This was the consequence of things I once thought were freedoms.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You can say you would choose the latter option all you want. The fact is, your noble decision won’t outweigh your survival instinct."

Chapter 6

My lunch arrived on a tray carried by a wilted, scowling maid. Her dress was a little more elaborate, with the familiar cross and triangle logo stitched on her armband. She was not a “DS”, however, she was an “HK” – housekeeper, maybe? She was stout with stocky legs but had what looked like well-built arms. Her hair was tucked into a hairnet and kept in place with a brown kerchief. She regarded with obvious disdain, probably out of having more mouths to feed.

The meal she had prepared was a toasted ham and cheese melt with tomato bisque. I ate it ravenously, like a dog given a steak after starving it for a week. Rather than one glass of water, she had given me many bottles. They were lukewarm, but I didn’t care.

It’s so weird how hunger affects the human mind. We used to have at term for it – “hangry” meaning “hungry” and “angry”. You don’t believe the stories of cannibalism and similar savagery until you feel real hunger for yourself. How else would we have survived in primal times without this instinct? Not the instinct of being hungry, but the desperation to find food.

Hunger was also instructive. It was used a psychological torture. Would you rather comply with the regime and have full bellies or defy it and starve to death? You can say you would choose the latter option all you want. The fact is, your noble decision won’t outweigh your survival instinct.

That’s how they gained followers. Weeks after the riots had erupted; the buildings and businesses had been ransacked and looted, grocery store chains overtaken by the new regime, factories shut down. Vigilantes took to the streets with guns, determined to become the rallying force of the opposition. However, the same vigilantes wavered when food was scarce and became opportunists in the face of crisis. The regime offered them food, shelter, beds, and camaraderie, provided you were the right skin tone and ideology.

Nate and I had red-eye flights booked straight to the UK. Canada was already overflowing with refugees and they had their own spats with sympathizers to quell. We decided to drive all the way to Greensboro because the Richmond airports had been usurped, all its flights grounded. The traffic on Route 220 was horrendous. State cops were complicit in the power shift, pulling over people on any available shoulder. They were pulling over mainly minorities.

The stop-and-go traffic thinned and we could drive faster on the six-lane highway.

“Any word from your mom?” Nate asked me.

I was chewing my fingernails to the quick, my leg bouncing as Nate drove. I checked my phone. No message from any of our parents.

“No.” I told him.

We were told to destroy our phones since they had GPS tracking software, but I couldn’t. If there was a chance I could speak to Mom and Dad, even if to just tell them I loved them one last time…

“Holy fucking shit.” Nate hissed.

My heart fell into my stomach.

The road ahead had been turned into a makeshift checkpoint. The sea of cars were prevented from passing by three white buses and many cop cars. Patrolling guards wearing all black, including balaclavas, stopping every so now and again to raid cars, pulling people out and taking them to God-knows-where.

“We should turn around…” Nate said.

“No. They’ll follow us.” I rebutted.

In any case, cars were piling up behind us. We were trapped.

_Oh God. Please get us through this. Please. Our lives can’t be over this soon. Please._

I had started to cry, repeating these words out loud.

I jumped as gunshots pierced the silence. I peered out the window, only seeing a pair of feet of someone who was lying prone in the grass. A second gunshot and then the bleeding corpse of a woman was flung onto the grass. I put my hands over my mouth, trying to keep in my terrified wails.

Her eyes were still open, brightly white against her dark skin. Blood soaked into the ground around her unmoving body. What had she done, then, to earn this sentence other than exist?

The surly housekeeper returned for the tray, sneering at me wordlessly. No telling why I disgusted her or why I even cared. Did she embrace this new order? Considering she’d been designated a servant, I could hardly think so. Maybe it was hierarchal, attitudes adapted to the pecking order. If she had underlings to detest, she had power, if only a little.

Maybe I thought too much.

I stared at the dress hung on the wardrobe door. It was as lumpy and formless as the dress I now wore, yet there were trimmings and elaborate sewn criss-cross patterns embroidered into the waist, sleeves and bottom hem in gold thread. There was a little plastic baggie attached with my own armband with the gold cross and red triangle bearing the letters “DC”. Did the “C” stand for Concubine?

My parents dragged me to church as a child. I joined Sunday School and did AWANA and Vacation Bible School during the summers. When I was a teenager, I became disillusioned with church and my parents stopped making me go. After a time, they stopped going as well. It was getting too political and the church faculty became frighteningly too concerned with attendance. They instead subscribed to preachers like Joyce Meyer and Billy Graham.

It was the hypocrisy that repelled me from religion. There were rumors that the youth pastor had dipped into the fundraisers for his own benefit and several girls had claimed he was “inappropriate” with them. These claims were not investigated because the main pastor of the church was his father.

I was also flummoxed at how evil God was in the Old Testament. Why were women not allowed to be promiscuous but “righteous men” could have over 100 concubines? If Adam and Eve weren’t supposed to eat from the tree, why did God put the tree in the Garden of Eden in the first place? I actually asked the youth pastor this and he had reported it to my parents, like it was a forbidden question or something, and my parents had to punish me for it. They didn’t, they just explained that God was testing Adam and Eve’s faith through temptation.

Just like back then, asking questions was wrong. Hell, it might even be against the law now.

I didn’t even know what day it was or how long it’s been since I was captured. If I had to guess, maybe a little over a week. Life seemed to blur together into one panorama, from the moment the gunned down woman’s body hit the grass to the bus to the detention center.

We heard them mumbling outside the car, talking to each other. One guard was holding an electronic tablet, his rifle slung over his back. Another one held his rifle in both hands, wedeling his way through the cars. Both Nate and I held our breath, as though that would make us invisible.

“Virginia license plate, W2KY093.” the rifle-holding guard read.

My lungs stopped. That was our car.

The other guard tapped on his tablet, probably looking up the registration.

“Nathan Monroe and Lucille Phillips. Not married. Lives in Roanoke. What do you think?”

The guard’s eyes perused us through the fogged windows.

“Both Caucasian. Though the male looks like a Jew.”

_Oh, God…I know I don’t really believe you exist, but I’m desperate. My parents still believe in you and pray for our safety. I can at least do that._

Words falling on deaf ears or no ears at all.

“We can prick ‘em at the centers.” the tablet-wielding guard commanded.

The other guard rapped sharply on the glass.

“Open the doors or we’ll break the window!” he screamed.

Numbly, my hands shook as I reached for the door lock. I looked back at Nate, somehow knowing this would be the last time I saw him. His eyes were watery, regarding me with unspoken love and fear.

“I love you…” I whispered. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.” his voice broke. “Don’t fight them. Try to stay alive.”

“You, too.”

We both yelled as the windows were broken, glass shards showering us. The doors opened, the chill of the air whipping us as we were wrenched apart.


	7. Chapter 7

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

– Edmund Burke

“People who insist on dividing the world into 'Us' and 'Them' never contemplate that they may be someone else's 'Them'.”

\- Ray A. Davis

“The world I remember was tired and racist and volatile as hell, ripe for a hostile takeover by a shit regime.

We were already divided.

The conquering was easy.”

\- Tahereh Mafi

“Men are afraid women will laugh at them.

Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

\- Margaret Atwood


End file.
